Adopting national coronavirus support principles into water codes 2020

We have temporarily amended our water customer service codes to incorporate National Cabinet agreed principles for hardship support during the coronavirus pandemic.

Embedding these national principles into our codes will ensure Victoria’s consumer protection framework is:

• consistent
• transparent
• accessible for the benefit of all.

Many of the protections outlined in the national principles are already regulated in some way through our water customer service codes. Areas extended by the national principles include:

• expanded hardship support for small businesses customers
• coronavirus specific measures such as halting supply restrictions, debt collection and debt recovery. 

Some of the national principles' measures were designed to be temporary. Accordingly we intend to engage with stakeholders as we review how long to retain the full set of national principles in the codes.

We also recognise that elements of the national principles were already being considered a part of business as usual practice prior to the pandemic. For example, the emphasis on proactive communications and extending support to small business customers. Stakeholders who took part in our 2019 review of the water customer service codes supported including these elements into a reformed water customer service code.

While currently postponed, we continue to engage with stakeholders on the best time to resume the review. Once resumed, it will look at which elements of the national principles ought to be carried forward into a reformed code.

The affected codes are the:

• Customer Service Code – Urban Water Businesses
• Rural Water Customer Service Code.